Cancer patients receive inadequate information

2018-10-03

Cancer patients looking for online information about experimental clinical drug trials risk finding that is not only bad, but sometimes also wrong. Also on official websites that aim to inform about available trials. According to a recently published study from Uppsala University, this can lead to consequences for patients.

Tove Godskesen, RN, PhD

Researchers from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB) have looked at information provided by the three largest official websites in Scandinavia, cancercentrum.se in Sweden, skaccd.org in Denmark and helsenorge.no in Norway.

According to Tove Godskesen, one of the authors, patients risk signing up for clinical trials for ethically doubtful reasons. The information was scored using readability indices, and received poor scores. Analysis of the content showed that information is sometimes misleading, and the authors suggest several ways to improve the information. Comparing the three countries, the study also shows that information provided in Denmark and Norway is better than that provided in Sweden.